{"id":888898,"date":"2026-06-24T06:45:20","date_gmt":"2026-06-24T06:45:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/888898\/"},"modified":"2026-06-24T06:45:20","modified_gmt":"2026-06-24T06:45:20","slug":"wanted-the-teton-ranges-few-remaining-mountain-goats","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/888898\/","title":{"rendered":"Wanted: The Teton Range\u2019s few remaining mountain goats"},"content":{"rendered":"

Every now and then, a hiker, climber<\/a> or biologist lays eyes on a mountain goat in the nooks and crannies of the mighty Teton Range. <\/p>\n

There\u2019s a good likelihood that the unwanted, nonnative animal<\/a> doesn\u2019t survive long after the authorities pinpoint its presence. That\u2019s because the National Park Service is now removing all mountain goats that survived an intensive three-year<\/a> effort to rid the Tetons<\/a> of the species. <\/p>\n

A striking white alpine species, mountain goats are being targeted by gunners because they\u2019re seen as a threat to native bighorn sheep. Mountain goats are more aggressive, overlap habitat and can also spread diseases that can be catastrophic<\/a>. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe have seen mountain goats \u2014 and we have removed those when we have found them,\u201d Grand Teton National Park Superintendent Chip Jenkins told WyoFile in February. \u201cWe hire a private contractor who does the flying in terms of doing the survey, and we hire a private contractor who does the removal.\u201d <\/p>\n

Those contracted crews are \u201chighly specialized\u201d in dealing with wildlife, he said. <\/p>\n

Park rangers have enlisted the public in their efforts to keep mountain goats out of the Tetons. Signs have been posted at places like the Taggart Lake trailhead, and the messaging asks recreators to report, photograph and even record GPS points of bighorn sheep and mountain goats. <\/p>\n

Teton Range bighorns are left alone. That native species has struggled for decades after development eliminated their migration routes<\/a> and backcountry skiers encroached on their winter habitat<\/a>. The Wyoming Game and Fish Department found just 80 bighorn sheep during its latest survey<\/a>, though DNA analyses of scat samples<\/a> suggest that some animals are missed during aerial surveys and the population is somewhat larger. <\/p>\n

Mountain goats are managed much differently. The Park Service is trying to remove the remainder to protect the bighorns. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re in the perpetuity business,\u201d Jenkins told WyoFile. \u201cWe\u2019re working to be able to ensure that we\u2019ve got bighorn sheep in the Tetons forevermore.\u201d <\/p>\n

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During high-profile efforts to wipe them out<\/a> from 2020 to 2022, some of the nonnative goats were missed. <\/p>\n

Mountain goats reached the Tetons in the late 1970s from the Snake River Range population<\/a> introduced by the Idaho Department of Fish and Game. By 2008, they were observed reproducing<\/a>, and the National Park Service first proposed eliminating the population in 2013, when an estimated \u201c10 to 15\u201d animals inhabited the range. It took nearly seven years to push those plans through, though, and by the time aerial gunners took flight in early 2020, the population had ballooned to about 100 animals. <\/p>\n

Some three dozen goats were killed<\/a> in that operation, which was cut short when then-U.S. Secretary of the Interior<\/a>David Bernhardt intervened<\/a>. Under pressure from Wyoming, the National Park Service allowed hunters on foot to cull the goats instead<\/a> and they killed 63 during the fall of 2020 and 2021<\/a>. The next winter, an aerial gunning operation killed another 58 goats<\/a>, this time without resistance from the state.<\/a><\/p>\n

It\u2019s been known for years that the hunters and aerial gunners missed some mountain goats, which dwell in treacherous, complex Teton Range terrain. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s extremely difficult to get every last one,\u201d Jenkins said. \u201cThere\u2019s always been an expectation that some would remain.\u201d <\/p>\n

A Jackson Hole News&Guide reporter encountered a goat<\/a> while climbing in summer 2024, a year park biologists confirmed 12 sightings \u2014 up from seven sightings the two prior summers.<\/p>\n

At that time, park wildlife biologist Sarah Dewey told the News&Guide that they weren\u2019t actively killing remnant goats. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t have any specific actions planned at this time,\u201d Dewey said in 2024, \u201cbut it\u2019s very likely that we will need to take action at some point.\u201d<\/p>\n

By the time Jenkins briefed WyoFile on the issue in February, the lethal operations were underway. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe big effort was five years ago, in terms of doing the removal,\u201d the superintendent said. \u201cNow, what we\u2019re doing is maintenance.\u201d <\/p>\n

In November 2024, the Park Service\u2019s contracted gunners killed 14 remnant mountain goats. There were 14 verified goat sightings in 2025, but no lethal operations occurred because there wasn\u2019t the money to hire the aerial crews, said Yvette Converse, Teton Park\u2019s division lead for science and resource management. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe are potentially going to do it again this fall,\u201d Converse said, \u201cbut we have to see if that makes sense at the time.\u201d <\/p>\n

So far, park rangers have not hiked into the Tetons to pursue mountain goats, but that option is on the table. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just risky and also difficult and costly to send people out on foot,\u201d Converse said. \u201cIf we get to a point where we have very, very few sightings \u2026 then we could potentially do that.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 2027 and beyond, Grand Teton\u2019s Mountain Goat Management Plan calls for population \u201cmaintenance\u201d that\u2019s focused on \u201cpreventing immigration and removing any new goats that enter the park, using ground-based, tactical methods.\u201d <\/p>\n

In the meantime, very few mountain goats likely remain in the Tetons. <\/p>\n

\u201cBased on a review of 2025 observations \u2014 considering location, group composition, and timing \u2014 we estimate 7\u20138 goats remain in the southern portion of the park, with others possibly in the northern trailless and more remote canyons,\u201d Converse wrote in an email. <\/p>\n

The Wyoming Game and Fish Department shares the park\u2019s goal of protecting Teton Range bighorns and the state agency authorized an aggressive mountain goat hunt<\/a> along the west slope of the range starting in 2019 with the intent of removing the population. A few years later, however, the hunt was halted.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were eventually selling a license where it was really difficult to find a mountain goat,\u201d said Brad Hovinga, Game and Fish\u2019s Jackson Region supervisor. <\/p>\n

Wyoming wildlife managers don\u2019t play any role in the goat-killing operations in Grand Teton National Park, Hovinga said. Outside the park, there hasn\u2019t been a need to kill remnant goats, he said, because none have been documented for several years. <\/p>\n

But if mountain goats are spotted outside the park along the west slope of the Tetons, Wyoming plans to follow suit. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe do plan to remove (animals) if we do see mountain goats reappear,\u201d Hovinga said.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

This story was originally published by WyoFile<\/a> and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Every now and then, a hiker, climber or biologist lays eyes on a mountain goat in the nooks…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":888899,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[27],"tags":[3425,360470,10109,10106,360472,168,57,11686,360469,159,61,67,132,68,837,13669,1669,360471,17860],"class_list":["post-888898","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-animals","tag-brad-hovinga","tag-climate","tag-climate-and-environment","tag-david-bernhardt","tag-domestic-news","tag-general-news","tag-national-park-service","tag-sarah-dewey","tag-science","tag-u-s-news","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us","tag-wildlife","tag-wy-state-wire","tag-wyoming","tag-yvette-converse","tag-zoology"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116803739854423208","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/888898","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=888898"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/888898\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/888899"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=888898"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=888898"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=888898"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}